


Etudes

by Delouest



Category: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee
Genre: M/M, One Shot, mutual pining is my jam, pining so much pining, we need more writing in this fandom so I wrote some
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 11:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14448381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delouest/pseuds/Delouest
Summary: "I’m afraid I’m the one that will fall apart from touching him and melt into a useless puddle on the floor. And it’s his bloody fault after all! That night in the music hall is still burned into my head like staring at a candle, the impression flickering on the insides of my eyelids every time I close my eyes."~*~After escaping the highwaymen and securing limited finances for lodgings on their way to return the puzzle box, Monty, Percy and Felicity find themselves in tight quarters, not that Monty minds.





	Etudes

**Author's Note:**

> This fandom needed more angst and fluff, so I wrote my own.

There are occasional quiet moments on our journey, in between all the highwaymen and puzzle boxes and intrigue. I look forward to these nights, even though they mean there’s nothing to distract me from the things I’d rather not dwell on. Like what my father will say once we finally make it home (if we ever make it home), or what will happen when Percy leaves for Holland, or Percy’s illness, or just… Percy.

It always comes back around to Percy. He’s become the thing I need most to be distracted _from_ , and that which I rather enjoy being distracted _by_. It’s maddening. Like scratching an itch. I know it will only make it worse, but it feels so goddamned good in the moment. I’d like to blame it on that night in the music hall in Paris. But I can’t. These feelings have been coming to a head for years.

But I’ve come to look forward to these quiet nights on the road. Now that we’ve slipped the leash of our watchdog Lockwood and retrieved enough cash to secure more consistent lodgings, it feels nice to play the part of adults travelling, as if this was our plan all along. Just two lads on the road (nevermind Felicity), carousing and drinking and very much not worrying about the dreaded duties and responsibilities that wait for us back home.

Of course, there’s been a distinct lack of drinking and carousing with all the muck of having no money and no contacts to help us along the way. But nevermind that. I am on my way to the pantry to see if there’s any gin so I might fix at least one of those problems, though I know I’d probably be better off sticking to tea. It’s best to keep my wits about me these days, much as I might want something stronger.

I make my way through the inn we’re spending the night in. It’s nicer than most we’ve found; we actually have our own small apartments tonight. But the hallways are narrow, dimly lit passages. Nothing like the halls of Father’s house. They are not built to hold shameless displays of wealth in the form of ostentatious baubles from his travels or gifts from the Duke of Wherever and the Lord and Lady of Whatever. They are narrow, barely enough room for one to pass through unencumbered. And they are tragically bereft of spirits; apparently we are meant to have brought our own. After I’ve riffled through one of the cabinets in the narrow hallway and found that they haven’t stocked it it with anything of interest, I admit defeat and turn to retreat back to the parlor.

I find myself suddenly, but not unwelcomingly, face to face with Percy. Well, face to chin, as he does have a good bit of height on me, and I realize these close quarters are rather good for something after all. Caught between the wall and one such as Percy Newton in a dark hallway is not an altogether terrible place to be.

“Oh,” he says when he bumps into me, looking up from the sheet music he was studying. He folds the pages to his chest as if palming a hand of cards at a gambling table. “I didn’t see you there.”

Right. Because it’s me who’s preoccupied with the whereabouts of him, not the other way around. He could be silent and still as a churchmouse in the middle of a crowd and my eyes would still find him out. I’m certain he spends a great deal less time preoccupied with my whereabouts than I do his. Still I am not about to complain that he’s lost track of me since it’s lead to me being pressed between him and the wall.

“I know I’m short, Percy, but I’m not that hard to miss, am I?” I say. “My hair alone is impossible not to take note of.”

Percy laughs, a bright sound in the quiet hallway. “I uh, no, I seem to be missing some pages of my music. I think I’ve left them in my fiddle case,” he says. “I was just on my way to retrieve them, and I didn’t know you were over here.”

“I was getting some... tea.” I mutter.

Percy narrows his eyes as if he knows I was searching for spirits, but mercifully doesn’t question me. We stand there in silence for what feels an eternity before finally Percy says, “Monty?”

“Yes, Perce?” I say softly.

“If you wouldn’t mind?” He gestures past me, brushing my shoulder as he points down the narrow hallway to our rooms where his violin case is stowed.

“Oh!” I say, voice louder than I intend. “Right. Let me just-” I shuffle to the side, careful not to knock into him, but the space is too tight and my knee, which apparently has a mind of its own, nudges his and we find ourselves stumbling.

He places his hand flat against my chest, splayed wide to catch our balance. I cough to cover the surprised noise that his sudden touch has pulled from me. It's not that I don't get touched often. Father would argue that most of my troubles stem from a distinct presence of arguably too much touching with too many girls and too many lads (of course any lad is too many for Father). Rather, it's that I can never keep it to myself when it's Percy touching me. Any touch at all. When he steadies himself getting out of a coach, I'm left rattled. When our fingers brush if he passes me the salt, I almost drop it every time. It's as if my body knows I'm not supposed to react, because it's _Percy_ , and I can't sully it with my infatuation, hard as I might try to forget it.

I swear to God, I used to be able to touch him. I’m sure he believes I think him fragile, breakable, after learning about his illness, like I’m afraid he’ll turn to dust if I press too hard against him, but I’m not. I’m afraid _I’m_ the one that will fall apart from touching _him_ , and melt into a useless puddle on the floor. And it’s his bloody fault after all! That night in the music hall is still burned into my head like staring at a candle, the impression flickering on the insides of my eyelids every time I close my eyes.

It’s those long, dark, delicate fingers of his. They make me think on the hours he's played his violin, the calluses he’s formed from work and study. It’s this thoughtfulness that comprises every part of him that I admire. That and those goddamned freckles of his. But the thoughtfulness most of all. He does everything with great intent, with a practiced, even hand. He thinks and plans before he acts, and I both admire and resent him that.

Felicity too, though obviously I find her markedly less distracting than I do Percy. Because I know that she too is in the other room studying, learning, bettering herself. How is it that I’ve surrounded myself by these careful, studious individuals, and here I am... What have I studied? What have I accomplished with all my time, all my father's money?

But I don’t want to think of my sister at this moment, and especially not of Father.

Because right now Percy’s hand is pressed firmly against my chest. I can feel his long fingers flex against my collarbone ever so slightly, and my breath catches in my throat. His other hand still grips the pages of music near our stomachs, an impossibly thin barrier between where we are now pressed together.

I don't believe my soul to be worth much, it’s been sullied too many times in too many ways in my short life, but I'd trade it in an instant for a deliberate touch from Percy. For one brief moment of quiet clarity knowing he's touching me, and not because I'm in the way, not because there’s not enough space to pass by each other, but because he wants to touch me, Henry Montague, and no other reason.

And all too suddenly I remember that Percy is trying to get past me. I come back to my senses as much as I can standing so close to him. We do an awkward waltz, my feet clumsy as we shuffle to reposition ourselves. “Steady on, darling,” I say in an overly chipper voice as we spin. But I can hear my words ring with the hollowness of false bravado, and hope Percy doesn’t pick up on it. I huff out a breath and try to play it off as a laugh, feeling every bit as confident as a wilted plant. I’m getting worked up over passing my friend in the hallway, and the shame of it colours my cheeks. It’s good the lighting is so poor in this hallway.

Percy pulls his hand away and I immediately feel its absence. Cold rushes to where the warmth of his practiced hand had momentarily pooled. “Right, so I’m going to get those pages. Just because we’re on the road and on the run is no excuse to stop my studies.” He sets off to the rooms to find his sheet music. I sigh after him.

I’ve clearly abandoned my search for spirits, distracted by my run in with Percy and instead retreat back to the parlor where Felicity hasn’t moved other than to turn the page on her book. I settle into one of the armchairs. Eventually Percy emerges with a few more pages of sheet music.

“No tea then, Monty?” Percy asks as he fans the pages on his music stand.

“Not tonight. I decided I wasn’t thirsty after all.”

He smiles softly and shakes his head a little before tucking the violin under his chin and begins to work on his etude once more.

I've read a lot of terrible poetry in my days, and had some truly remarkably bad poetry read to me - whoever decided the way to woo a lad is with words when mouths can do so much more interesting things? But when I look at Percy when he’s lost in this otherworldly place he goes to when he plays his violin, I understand it. I understand trying to find the words to sum up one's infatuation, only to fall short. To reach for the moon and the stars as a stand in because they're far away and unknowable, as far away and unknowable as love itself. And how even the moon and the stars are not enough. They are blasted rocks out there in the void that are dust compared to a single second of Percy smiling, his deep brown eyes lighting up in one of the rare moments where I've made him laugh with my antics. And the way he tries - and fails - to pull that smile into a frown when he knows it isn’t proper.

While it’s true I haven’t studied anything Father would approve of, I realize I have in fact studied one very important subject: Percy. So while Felicity reads and Percy practices, I settle in do some studying of my own. I take in the the hard line of his mouth when he plays a difficult passage, the curl of his fingers on the neck his violin. I try and fail not to think of these fingers pressed against my chest again. He sways with every draw of of the bow. His eyes are closed tight in concentration, and his eyelashes cast spindly shadows that caress his cheeks in the dim light.

I wonder, fleetingly, why he bothered to retrieve the pages when he clearly has the piece memorized. He hasn’t opened his eyes in ages. Why had he gone through the dance of passing by me in that narrow hallway to get to them if he had no intention of using them? But I drop the thought and for once allow myself to stop worrying about Percy’s motivations and simply enjoy the music he plays on this rare quiet night. It’s in these moments that I feel truly at peace. There’s no one else but the two of us, and well, Felicity, but she hardly counts.

Percy plays, and Felicity studies, and I look on, lucky just to watch it unfold in front of me.

**Author's Note:**

> He got up to get the pages even though he didn't need them because he wanted to get stuck in the hallway with you, Monty, you absolutely blind lovesick halfwit.


End file.
